


Stalwart Solo

by Runeless



Category: Darkest Dungeon (Video Game)
Genre: Cannibalism, Canon-Typical Violence, Clowns, Gen, Jester - Freeform, NOT THIS ONE, Stalwart - Freeform, TW: Blood, Tasting Funny, Virtuous - Freeform, Witches, many fall in the face of chaos, not today!, tw: cannibalism, tw: gore, virtue - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:53:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24746404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Runeless/pseuds/Runeless
Summary: Many fall.Some rise.(the Jester and the Hag; of final moments, and jokes, of the healing and rejuvenating power of laughter.  Of minds and hearts that do not break in the face of evil, but find themselves renwed, revived... stalwart.)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	Stalwart Solo

**Stalwart Solo**

As the Witch choked him, Jingles the Jester thought, _perhaps we made a mistake in our tactics._

A great task they'd been appointed; go kill the Witch. The Hamlet was pulling together now, and it was time to start hunting the great beasts that plagued the land- and first on the list was the Witch. With her dead, the Forest's corruption would halt, and perhaps more aid could be brought from outside, to help what was left of the Heir's makeshift army.

( _If you want to kill us, there are faster ways_ , he'd told her, when she gave them the task, and he held it as the highest triumph of his art that the Heir, the most haunted person he had ever met, had laughed. The humor was of the darkest sort, but that fit; everything here ran towards the night, even joy.)

So the call had come- hunt her down. Debate had raged about who should go, which of the Heir's teams of freaks should go. The teams were the result of the harshest winnowing process in history; originally the Heir had sent large groups into the terrible lands around the Hamlet, but that had proven... unwise.

Great numbers had come at the Heir's call, seeking fortune and glory, and finding only death and nightmare. Large groups were noticed faster, were surrounded before they could escape, and the Heir could not commit enough forces to overwhelm such a dedicated defense. The Hamlet had to fight clever; it could not brute-force its foes out of their homes. They had to be surgical, slicing out tumors; the flame had to cut the thing's heart, for it could not burn all the darkness.

From those original vast hordes and the nightmare of those first few bloodsoaked months this gathering had congealed, the human clots that were all that was left of all that bloodshed. Those who were lucky, determined, brave, stupid and stubborn enough to last, the solid stones that the nightmarish mill of this place had not yet reduced to gory grist. Eighteen people, less than two dozen, who alongside the poor stagecoach driver, the Heir, and the scattered townsfolk of this wretched place, were the only thing standing between the world and Armageddon.

The teams were a natural outgrowth of the Heir's learning. Small, fast, deadly, worked well together. In and out before the darkness could mount a serious defense, laden with treasure and knowledge more precious than gold.

Since they'd started this way of doing things, few had died, and in the last two months, _no_ one had died; it was what had given the Heir the courage to order the next step taken. The remaining warriors had naturally formed into squads, people of like nature clinging to people of like nature, making teams that worked like well-oiled machines.

Jingles had given them names, because that was his nature; his own little cluster were the Merry Band of Misfits, or Merry Misfits as most of the town abbreviated the name, something that irritated their leader Dismas to no end. Dismas, who had been there from the start, who had accompanied the Heir at the start, who hunted monsters and was himself hunted by his past.

( He wasn't alone in that; Jingles still dreamed of court, and the atrocities he had provided musical accompaniment too, hating himself for his cowardice in the face of evil until, one day, he found he was more afraid of _living_ this way than he was of dying, and went to the court with a new tune to play- a swift sort of dancing song, meant for two hands, knife accompanied by sickle.)

Dismas, who had stood up, with that terrible _weight_ to him, and announced that they would go. Dismas, who moved with such gravity that even Jingles, irreverent and hating authority since he'd left the court crimson in his wake, found himself unconsciously obeying him. Dismas, who had a... a kind of _holiness_ to him, real holiness, not the false sanctity the Church folk whined about. Real holiness, the kind that was terrifying to observe, the grim terribleness of angels in the face of demons, a resolve that stiffened spines even as it made your heart quake.

Dismas had said they'd go; so the rest volunteered. The Heir had nodded her noble head, and out they went, pockets jingling with her gold, to spend on their equipment.

( Jingles had, once, been the favored musician of a monster in human flesh, who had entertained his fellow royalty in many debauched ways... but until he met the Heir, he had never once been in the presence of a true queen, of one who commanded and did so well. In some ways, she awed him; no mater how vicious his humor became, he never made jokes about the Heir, and while Jingles never noticed it himself, others did.)

The trip through the woods had been as simple as it usually was. Dismas had led the way, all stoic wisdom. Audrey complained about how they wouldn't make much cash out in the Weald- she'd never liked the forest jobs, not enough money unless they lucked up and ran into the bandits- and Boudica had been right behind Dismas, his eternal guard, the barbarian woman giggling at the prospect of battling such a mighty foe... and surprisingly focused, like it mattered to her in some obscure way, though Jingles did not dare pry. It was one of the group's unspoken rules; he could mock anything but their pasts, and considering they put up with his attitude with good humor otherwise, he thought it a fair trade.

Things had went well... up until they found her, holding court in the Forest. They'd found a small hill, and used it as cover, getting quite close to the gathering- the witches were having a bit of a party, apparently, celebrations just beginning to start as the dim sun, only barely visible through the canopy of corrupted trees, began to sink down. They'd heard it long before they got there, dodging fungal servant guards and a few giants, alongside wandering members of the skull-masked cult that seemed to have a hand in literally _every_ evil that haunted the Hamlet. They crawled up the hill, and peered over it, straight at the madcap gathering.

Jingles had almost shit himself seeing it. It had looked so _much_ like his lord's feasts... if anything, it was _less_ horrible, because the witches were more honest about the terrible things they did. Fungal servants, the remnants of humans poisoned by their powers, moved and served them, the viragos drinking fine stolen wine from human skulls hollowed out and reinforced, from ribcage bowls eating human flesh made into soup by their leader, grown tall and grotesque on her foul supper, a sight that even turned Boudica's mighty stomach. A great bubbling cauldron, and the remnants of hands and eyes bobbing in it, until the lade dipped one out and she crunched on the fingerbones, crackling sweet in her mouth.

After that, they'd pulled back to talk, and also so Dismas wouldn't vomit- a surprise, none of them had liked seeing that, but nothing really bothered Dismas. It wasn't that different from the Swine, in Jingles' opinion, save that the witches had made a choice.

Plans had been discussed, quickly. They'd wanted to ambush her, surprise her... but then the giant had come out of the woods behind them. Sheer bad luck; it had been as surprised to see them as they were to see it, had in its great big hands not a treeclub but the remnants of a large treasure chest. It had been bringing gifts to the Witch's wilderness court.

A fight had broken out, all stealth lost in that moment. Audrey flung knives at its eyes and got one of them; Boudica had smacked it with her axe, the edge bouncing off thick and slimy hide. Jingles had stabbed it in the knee with his dirk, the blade sticking; he'd left it, it was just a knife, pulled out his sickle and tried to slice its belly open- or at least as much of it as he could reach, the thing so damn _big_ that even his sharpest cuts couldn't hit anything vital. Blood loss would be telling, eventually, but time was not on their side, not when the giant's bellows made the Hag _quite_ aware that something was wrong, and the retort of Dismas' pistol gave her an idea what that something was.

They'd ended up attacked on all sides. He'd lost his weapons in the chaos; wasn't sure how...

Then the Witch had grabbed him with one great hand, and now here he was, dangling over the cauldron.

The cauldron stank of blood and bile and the slit innards of its making, and even the herbs the doctor had asked him to put under his mask didn't block out the smell. The witch's fat, greasy hand on his throat felt slimy even through his clothes, and the avaricious hunger in her eyes wasn't as bad as the _joy_ there, the delight she took in doing what she did. Such a _jolly_ beast she was- the virago witches that made up her servants howled with joy nearby, and even the wounded giant was laughing in its dumb, drugged, parasitic way, pus and blood running from its wounds but ignored by the fungus-controlled beast.

Jingles' whole world shrank to the vice grip choking him, to the pounding terror thundering through his veins, to the pop and sizzle of the boiling glop beneath him, to the sounds of his friends fighting for their lives and _losing_ that fight.

_I killed the court and traveled here just to be eaten by a more honest one,_ he thought, as the Witch lifted him high, ready to throw him in. _Light's shine, I'm about to be eaten by a fairy tale witch. What the fuck._

Something inside him hit the wall, now or never, a choice he didn't understand, but knew, instinctivley, _mattered,_ no matter that his brain ached his soul quivered and these were his last moments...

...But how shitty would it be, to die so scared? Hell, he was about to be eaten by a fairy tale witch- he could appreciate the humor of it all, couldn't he? How _funny_ it all was. He'd always seen the lighter side of things... and this, this was kinda funny.

He was a clown, after all, and she was going to eat him.

He wondered if he'd taste funny.

_Now that's a bad joke,_ he thought, but it was still... kind of funny.

A single chuckle escaped his throat.

And then, because he'd always been inappropriate, because he'd always been that guy, more followed that single brave chuckle.

_I bet I'll taste funny._

Light, that wasn't a bad joke at all, that was _hysterical,_ he kept chucklilng, more, more, until finally...

He started to laugh.

He started to _laugh_ , even as he was being choked, genuine, honest to god _laughter_ , not the giggling madness that sometimes took people in their last moments but big belly laughs, deep guffaws, he laughed the way a child did, he laughed for the pure joy of it. The Witch's grip on his throat kept his chuckles quiet at first, but as she heard him- as he laughed, as he _laughed_ \- her hand faltered.

Prey didn't _laugh_. Not before the cauldron. Not when she had her hands on them. Prey didn't _laugh_.

(Unbidden, the thought occurred to the monstrous hag- _predators laugh._ )

Her grip weakened, and something in the man was brave now, did not notice the burning thing beneath him, he didn't _care._

_I bet I'd taste funny._

“ Hey!” he told the witch. “ I bet I'd taste funny! Cause, you know, I'm a clown! Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!”

He laughed, and the reaper, who had its skeletal hands on him, felt him slip right between its fingerbones, he laughed and he was _free._ The Witch's hand slackened, too, not sure what to say, stumped by his words, so confused, so _surprised_ that, just for a second, she forgot to keep her grip tight on him.

He laughed... and grabbed the slackening hand with arms that found themselves full of new vigor.

“ Eat this!” he yelled, still laughing, and he kicked her in the face.

She snarled as his feet slapped heavy and hard against her jowls, and let go of him- but _he_ didn't, she'd had him and now, now he had _her._ He clung to her like a biting leech and he laughed and he kicked her in the face again.

“ A one man dance!” he yelled, delirious and wild and glorious; he did not care that he was inches above his own horrible death, he did not _care_ , and because he did not care about death, it found it could not catch him. “ Come one, come all! This night only! Clown versus Witches, the deathmatch of the century! Hahaahahahahahahaha!”

The witches around the Hag didn't know what to do, this wasn't how the story went, this was not how the story was supposed to _go_. Prey squealed and prey made brave speeches; prey did not _laugh_ , prey did not strike the predator and go on the offensive, prey did not make jokes and act the fool.

Behind all of this, the fungal horrors lost their leadership suddenly, as the Witch turned her full magic and attention away from commanding them and towards dealing with the fool kicking her in the face; the monsters stumbled, stopped, awaiting further orders. The second's reprieve it brought wasn't much, but this party of Davids had learned to capitalize on even the smallest advantages they found in their war on these Goliaths; the second was enough for Audrey to scramble for more knives and wing them into spell-casting throats, for Dismas to reload a misfired gun, for Boudica to scream her great warcry and, with a two-handed heave, slice the giant's leg clean off, a blow that would kill it in seconds.

Even as his friends turned the tide, he laughed. Jingles, bereft of weapons, found he still had his dancing shoes, and he kicked and he kicked and he kicked, scattering cannibal teeth and breaking her nose, even as she roared and shook her arm, trying to get him off of her.

If she would stop for just one second and _think_ , she'd realize she could just use her other hand and pull him apart, or cast a spell that would make his lungs burst into a butterfly of fungal infection- but she didn't have that second of thought, couldn't, not with Jingles' feat beating her head like a drum.

“ A merry jig!” he announced, talking to no one, talking to himself and everyone, laughing as he introduced this foreign court to his own homemade dance. “ A merry jig indeed!”

She roared, kept trying to fling him off, shook him like a rabid dog. On a whim he let go, flying off of her from her great strength, straight towards her gathered cronies.

Crones for cronies- Crone-ies. He laughed, the pun so stupid and so perfect, he laughed, but he was on them before he could speak, could only show how _funny_ it all was by laughing, even as he landed hard, both hands outstretched, breaking the neck of the virago he landed on. Breaking her neck, and his shoulder, too; he hit so hard that he felt his left shoulder pop right out of its socket, but no matter- he had people to help him!

Laughing still through the bolts of pain shocking him, he took his twisted shoulder and rose up, hard as he could, practically bouncing up off the ground, using his busted shoulder to ram another witch in the face. It popped his shoulder back into alignment, he hit so hard, bursting her skull mask apart and sending the fragments into her eyes even as the pain made him want to black out.

But he was too busy laughing to fall apart, it was all such a comedy that he could not bear to miss it; he stayed conscious as the witch howled in blinded pain. As she screamed, he stole the knives right out of the hands of one stunned virago nearby, fine things stolen from dead travelers.

He twirled them a second, getting a feel for their weight, as the witches recovered, and began to rush him, too close for any of them to risk the long wind-up of a spell.

Good knives. Good knives, no wonder she'd stolen them...

He laughed as they attacked, and then he set about gaining vengeance for the dead people who had once carried the knives in his hands.

Blood, blood everywhere, he was among them and he was _dancing_ , they could not touch him. Knives flashed against him; he dodged, one-step two-step daggers-in-their-veins. No fear, no doubt, he committed himself without reservation to this attack, and it was the thing that mattered most; the witches, who were used to scaring their enemies, to hesitancy and caution, found they could not stop his reckless assault. A terrible irony- because he didn't care if he was hurt, he found he was invincible, and what was irony, but something _funny?_

He laughed, and in those moments, he could have stepped out into a thunderstorm and danced between the raindrops, and the lightning would have laughed with him. He was inches from them and they could not catch him, but he could catch _them_ , they had a tiger not by the tail but by the two teeth in his hands and they flashed fast and fine into throats and bellies and wrists.

He was upon them, and it was too much; hurt, scared, half of them dying from sliced throats or bleeding out from veins snicker-snacked by the twin blades in his hands, the remaining witches finally ran, the darkness fled screaming before the laughter of the light.

He laughed.

He turned, his mildewed motley redder than it had ever been, he was soaked through with gore, to the Hag, who was just now recovering... and as she stumbled around to face him, still unbalanced, he saw the cauldron directly behind her, and the _funniest_ thought occurred to him.

“ Hey!” he said. “ Chef, let's add a _personal_ touch to your soup!”

And laughing, he ran at her, full tilt, tossing his daggers into her eyes at the last second. They didn't sink in- he wasn't Audrey- but the knives distracted her, she raised a hand to her face and flinched back. The flinch was the opening he needed; he leapt atop her, both feet, and he kicked her in the face one last time.

She stumbled backwards, tripping over herself- and fell, backwards, almost into the pot, grabbing onto its blazing hot rim and screaming as it seared her, unsteady as she halted her fall.

Jingles, with strength he had not known he possessed, grabbed her legs, and he lifted, throwing the old hag into her own pot.

She screamed as the boiling liquid covered her, but not for long.

He had to keep her in there, but only a few times, taking the great ladle she'd been using and whacking her when she tried to rise up. Just twice, the first time scalded but alive, the second time liquefying even as she tried to fight back. He laughed the entire time, he was cooking the cannibal in her own pot, how hilarious was that?

Laughing still, when she went quiet and her skull slid cooked and soft into the pot's death, he turned to his friends, and bowed to his companions at the finale of his one-man show.

“ Ta-daaaaaaa!” he announced, laughing.

And that was how the Witch of the Woods, the Great Hag, who had corrupted an entire forest, mutated and murdered untold scores of people, and commanded an army of the parasitic and savage, was killed by a clown.

It made for a fine story back at the tavern.

( And when things began to end- when they all raced into the Darkest Dungeon, to face the Heart, to face their maker- the Jester found it in him to laugh again, and perhaps that played a part in sealing the beast.)

**Author's Note:**

> I always wanted to do a piece about gaining a Virtue instead of a Vice, so here's my contribution- a Jester hitting Stalwart as the Witch tries to feed him to the pot.
> 
> Like and comment below if you enjoyed this!


End file.
